Top 3 Favorite Foods in Singapore

1. Chicken Rice

This dish was what my Lonely Planet Guidebook claimed a “must-try” while in Singapore. Indeed, they were right. Chicken Rice is actually considered one of the national dishes of Singaporean culture. It’s a dish that originated from Hainan, China and was brought over to Singapore by early immigrants. It’s prepared with fragrant rice (rice that has been pre-fried in chicken fat and cooked in chicken broth), bite-size steamed white chicken, and served with soy sauce and ground chili paste on the side. It’s a simple dish but every time I eat it, I wonder why I don’t eat more of it!

2.  Nasi Lemak

The first time I tried this dish, I was at a hawker center (open-space food courts in Singapore with many different food stalls). I saw that this particular stall had a long queue (Singaporeans love to queue because it must mean that the food is very good) so I decided to join in. The food this stall was serving was Nasi Lemak, which is also considered a national dish of Singapore. Nasi Lemak has its origins in Malaysia. It’s prepared with fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and comes with a fried egg, fried chicken wing, and served with small fried anchovies, and sambal (a spicy sauce). It’s usually very cheap, I pay around 3.50$ SGD for one meal (equivalent to 2.82$ US dollars!).

3. Char Siew Bao

Char Siew Bao’s are Cantonese barbequed pork- filled buns. They are simply delicious and surprisingly filling. It’s usually found in dim sum restaurants but in Singapore there are a lot of on-the-go dim sum stalls at food courts, which makes it convenient to eat this as a snack during any time of the day. There is a food court on my campus that has one of the stalls and I always find myself grabbing a bun in between classes!